


Mother (Make Me a Big Tall Tree)

by CapturetheFinnick



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: ? maybe, F/F, Family, Introspection, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Supportive Earp Siblings (Wynonna Earp), parenting, single mother waverly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapturetheFinnick/pseuds/CapturetheFinnick
Summary: Waverly knows what it's like to feel cold in a warm room, to feel a north wind blow through you as easily as paper with no place to call home.For single mother Waverly the beginning is scary but with the help of her steadfast rock Gus, her wild wind of a sister and something new on the horizon in the shape of Nicole Haught maybe she can make it through. After all, it takes a village to raise a child, and even a mismatched village has heart.





	Mother (Make Me a Big Tall Tree)

**Author's Note:**

> This was so difficult to summarise so if you clicked on this at all thank you, honestly not sure what this is but I wanted to write it so here it is, from my brain to yours.  
> The title comes from the florence and the machine song 'mother'.

When Waverly first held her baby in her arms she was lonely. Two family members missing, two dead, and an aunt who she kept at arms length, as if everything she touched turned to dust, as if even this precious little baby, blue eyed and cooing, could be cursed by her own hand. She’d taken to faking illness, ignoring Gus until she went away, often leaving pots of food in her wake which lay spoiled in the corner of Waverly’s eye on the kitchen counter. She didn’t name the baby for a whole month, it was just _the baby._ She knew what it was like to feel cold in a warm room, to feel a north wind blow through you as easily as paper with no place to call home. She wasn’t neglecting Hazel. She got her up, got her dressed, and fed her like clockwork, but she spent hours wishing for the sun to go down and getting scared when it did, she spent weeks jumping every time Gus’ jeep pulled into the driveway. She’d clutch Hazel close to her chest and still feel as if she wasn’t really there, as if she would slip through her fingers like sand.

It only took Gus one look to know that something was wrong.

Gus was made of rock. She was steadfast against the rapid tide, ever steady, and lord knows she’d dealt with wave after wave. She was weathered but would never fall. You don’t take two orphaned children if you can’t cope with a few storms (and god knows raising Wynonna was like driving into to the very heart of a tornado). But _Waverly,_ Waverly had always been the calm, the gentle wave, the sun coming up again, a new day.

Waverly was not made out of rock. Maybe she had been, once upon a time, but not now. Now she was made of limestone, of chalk, one touch and she’d crumble into the carpet, trodden into the crevices by a great big boot until it was impossible to get out, stuck amongst the fibres until it was just thrown out, entrapped.

Gus was also like clockwork. She was outside every day, a pillar among the snow. Gus was a lot of things, and a quitter wasn’t one of them.

Waverly peered around the door, the grey under her eyes a swirling sea, the baby wrapped around her chest as if it were a part of her own skin, gradually crawling back inside her cavernous chest.

She’d opened her eyes, big and blue, those same eyes that had been there for her time after time, steady as a rock; Gus. And then Waverly was outside. And it was bigger than it had been before. _Big open skies!_ The old brochures always said, but it’s mouth was huge, it’s teeth seeming to smile at her, wide as a Cheshire cat, and had the ground always been so long? She thought she might disappear, a small spot in a big world, just a dot amongst miles of white snow. She could hear other people’s whispers breathing on her skin like a spider in the night, crawling and spreading its legs against her skin. She dug her nails into her hand so hard she drew blood, everything a little lighter in colour than normal.

Gus let her go with a worrying look, a frown etched into her rockface, an upside-down smile.

But Gus didn’t intervene until Waverly found herself under the bright lights of a Walmart supermarket, directly under them in fact, the cracked, smudged tiles cold beneath her, creeping over her like fog tying her down, the baby screaming in the trolley, and several faces swinging above like chandeliers. A kaleidoscope of features. _Concerned. Bothered. Angry. Judgemental._

Round and round we go.

And that was when the doctor gave her the note, white like heaven, scratches on the underside of her wrists, a wicked crook in her neck.

The last time she’d been there she’d been behind Gus’ legs, a white sheet over a body on the table through the crack in the door. And Gus was made of rock but right then she was crying, salt splashing down into the sea, the mighty fallen. An angel had one arm around her and another arm on the desk behind which a man with a moustache tapped impatiently. _There was no time for tears._ So nobody had been watching Waverly. Her small eyes were inquisitive, her fingers exploring, gripping onto the edge of the door and then the sheet until there was nothing before her but death itself, no white sheet to glamour, to speak of heaven and souls, just a slowly greying face, draining and melting back into the earth, screaming of reality that all bodies age and die. But Waverly didn’t know that. Waverly was only four years old, she didn’t know things.

She clambered onto a wicker chair, prodding her sister in the face like she did on Saturdays when her and Wynonna wanted pancakes, when their daddy was already down the pub, when her sister, more grown in Waverly’s eyes that she would ever get to be, would arise without fail because demons may rattle around her head but here were two little girls who wanted pancakes. And what was simpler than that? But this time when she prodded Willa she didn’t wake, she didn’t groan or pull the covers back over her head, she stayed perfectly still like a game of musical statues, not wavering not even when the music came back on, Willa was older than her, Willa knew things, Willa was better at games. And her skin was cool like after they would get out of the lake just before Wynonna wrapped her in a big fluffy towel, a towel left from the time _before._ But Waverly didn’t see any towels and so she resorted to her second best. Her body made heat, she knew that from long nights where her daddy forgot to pay the heating bill and the three of them would huddle together like penguins at the zoo (Waverly hoped to one day go to a zoo), huddle together for warmth. But Aunt Gus didn’t see the warm memory of her childhood play out, she didn’t know about Waverly’s magical warming powers. Sometimes even adults didn’t know things, and all she saw was her one alive child lying on top of her dead one and she screamed so loud Waverly could hear it ringing for weeks in her ears, even when she was all alone.

And Waverly could hear it again now, as the clouds were drifting faster than usual and Hazel was babbling in her car seat, so far from Waverly’s own skin (what if her skin was lake-cold?), the walls seemed to move closer together, slowly, purposefully, a march of oppression. Nobody else could look after Hazel. Not today. She was all Waverly’s, made by her alone, from her very own rib and Waverly had miles of ghosts, dead bodies buried deep in the ground, and souls that roamed the earth, but here was a live one, heart beating. How was she supposed to raise a baby when her own mother was but a ghost?

Waverly’s throat was constricting and the clouds had descended to earth, wrapping their limbs around her, leaving grubby handprints like chalk.

Ms Earp.

A barely recognisable shadow.

_Ms Earp._

And that was enough for a scrawled note with words that Waverly couldn’t stomach. Enough to stick her with a label and ask her to leave again. But those six words couldn’t fill the void and blow the wind away and so Waverly still shivered as she held Hazel at night, because as cold as the world was, Hazel was slowly becoming her fire.

~

It was snowing when she gained a sister. The dimming light backlit her like a wonder woman, the snow swirling around her figure, her hair blowing perfectly in the wind. She’d returned, a wandering soul no more, her old father’s gun gripped in one shaky hand and a battered backpack slung over her shoulder. She stared at Waverly, long and hard before throwing herself at her. And Wynonna’s skin wasn’t lake-cold, despite the freezing temperatures, it was warm like on nights where Waverly would curl against her, on nights where Wynonna would wrap herself all around, a barrier against the outside. It was her Wynonna, and she was home-warm.

Waverly didn’t ask where she’d been. And Wynonna didn’t offer. She sat down in their daddy’s old armchair and she still wouldn’t let go of his gun, the metal pressing against her palm as if it belonged there. She was home now, a ball of fire, amongst the dust.

_You’ve really let this place go._

A cheeky grin, the heart of a tornado.

The cry of a baby.

 _Is that a baby?_  Wynonna said, and suddenly she was older. She was no longer a whirlwind fighting every day, the older sister who was left, the older sister who left, she was part of an older generation.

“Whose is she?”

“She’s all mine,”

And that settled that.

~

Waverly started sleeping again. She started waking up to a dawn instead of a night cold and empty. She slowly relinquished control. Wynonna only drank on off-nights and Hazel loved her, Wynonna’s camera roll soon was filled with only her, in the same little prairie dresses they’d worn in the _before times,_ pretty as a peach, her little smile breathing life into old corners. And Waverly still saw the ghosts circling the house, but they were a protective circle, keeping in the warmth and keeping out the cold, and she could see beyond now.

Gus came for lunch on Sundays, a steady rock with a lasagne in hand, she even choked down whatever desert Wynonna contributed, and with a smile too. She held Hazel as she had held the three girls before her, and their mother, her halo light illuminating generations of women, even cradled in her arms.

Hazel had more toys that she knew what to do with, and Gus would stitch her new dresses, dragging her old truck to the nearest town where they had a specialist craft shop, even Nedley dropped off ‘some of Chrissy’s old toys’ (that looked far too shiny to be twenty years old). On weekends the sisters would take her down to that same old lake, and it didn’t matter if she got lake-cold because they were always there with a big warm towel, and that water was a part of their history, the same recycled water they used to swim in and the same sun to feel on her face. The wide-open skies were sometimes still filled with teeth but on those days, she had Wynonna to show her the stars, to talk about her travels to the four corners of the world, to share her knowledge of that wild open world. And she had Hazel to ground her, she was fast becoming a sun for everyone else’s orbit, it’s amazing how a baby so small could stitch everyone back together.

~

Wynonna was born a tornado. And a tornado can never be anything but a kind of wind. The call rang through the house and Waverly had to drive through the night, a teething baby refusing to sleep anyhow, fussing around in her arms, a slippery fish trying to be free. She’d gained a sister, a partner, the one her life was forever knotted with. She’d also gained a second child, this one with a more mischievous glint in her eye.

The police station was loud, the phone rang consistently, out of time with Hazel’s own cries and a personal storm formed in Waverly’s head, she pinched her head and closed her eyes. She had to be a rock too, and she was learning.

“Can I help you?”

The voice was southern, and melodic, and of all things new. Nothing in this town was new.

She looked up to find a great big smile among the grey, her hair bright against a background. She was wrapped in bright, crisp cellophane with a red bow. There was something out of place about it as if she were too vivid for the room around her, something dazzling and brand new amongst everything else. Waverly felt her heart skip a little, tiny somersaults, but there all the same. And for a minute she stopped hearing Hazel’s screams ringing in her ears.

“Are you okay?” the woman spoke again, tilting her head a little this time and Waverly nodded her head, a small gesture, “Can I take her?” she motioned towards the baby, “You seem to have your hands full,”

And Waverly gave her a piece of her heart, and watched that piece smile up at her, eyes big as she stilled, quiet and rocking in her arms, looking up at her like something shiny and new. Maybe she too could see the shift in the air.

Nedley came out the back room, all gruff and grey, another figure in the tapestry of Waverly’s childhood, a big teddy bear who let her ride in the back of his car, who found her on that fateful night, who let her crawl into his lap and fall asleep. She’d seen him in flickers since, it smiles across the bar at Shorty’s, in Christmas eve drinks at Aunt Gus’, if ever she had a guardian angel it would be him, all that light stuffed into his small body.

“You here for Wynonna?” he said, rolling his eyes, offering her a smile warm as a summer’s day.

“You’re the famous Waverly Earp?” the woman said, and she raised her eyebrows as if it were a challenge, her name rolling of her tongue as if it belonged there.

“I guess I am,”

~

Waverly got one Hazel-free day a month.  And she still felt guilty about it. Guilt was a part of her now, woven within her, stitches so small they were naked to the human eye, but which pinched all the same. Raising a human was terrifying, and it was a full-time occupation for her brain, every small move was something her little one would remember, she held every scar close to her own chest, and to think of Hazel doing the same broke her heart clean in two. On those days she got to be herself, whatever that was. She got to be more than a halo around Hazel’s head. And she loved Hazel to death, sometimes late at night when the room spilled with thick darkness, she spent hours watching the moon watch her face, watching the stars grant her protection. It takes a village to raise a child but it just so happened that her current village consisted of her drunken sister and her Aunt Gus, the rock, who single handledly ran the only bar in town and was so entwined with every aspect of Purgatory, its beating heart, that Waverly was sure if she were to disappear it would slowly start to unravel.

On those days she wandered book shops and libraries and stared longingly at books on ancient history and foreign languages, on Greek gods and high German, a parallel universe, an as yet untouched world. Her halo burned bright still, was on show for everyone to see, but she struggled to lower it, she shined so bright for everyone else, she forgot to shine bright for herself, her powers only worked outwardly. And for now she had to be okay with that.

She saw a vivid flash, the dust filled books shimmered in the morning light but this was brighter than that, a flash of pure red, and before she knew it she was face to face with the woman, everything else faded into the background.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said as she leaned against the bookshelf, her Stetson clutched in one hand and Waverly wanted to turn on her feet, to run away almost as much as she wanted to stay. She was new. Nothing was new.

Nicole would later confess to Waverly that she wasn’t even looking for anything, that she’d seen her through the shop window from across the road where her police car was parked, that she’d wanted any excuse to talk to her again, but for now she picked a random book off the shelf and clutched it to her chest,

“What you reading?”

Nicole peered down at her book as if seeing it for the first time,

“ _A guide to western Europe,”_

“You travel?”

“Not usually,” she smiled, “I’d like to though,”

And for the first time in a long time Waverly let herself imagine moving away, leaving the tiny box with all it’s suffocations, and seeing somewhere _new_ , seeing wide oceans and green open fields, seeing anything that wasn’t prairie lands and wide-open skies. In Nicole she saw her future reflected back at her.

~

In the mirror was reflected back a girl Waverly didn’t think she’d ever seen, one who stood up a little straighter, all the light of the _before_ times in the adult body she’d learnt to hate, and she found herself smiling just a bit.

Wynonna caught her. Hazel was in her arms, playing with her hair, wrapping it around her fingers, her chubby arms reaching out for Waverly when she saw her again, her own personal boomerang, some people you could never shake, no matter how hard you throw them they always come back, they’re a part of you. Waverly had three boomerangs clung to her and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Do we think mommy looks pretty?” Wynonna said watching Hazel press her little face against Waverly’s, nothing but love in her heart, none of the trepidation, just blind faith. Waverly had her little family.

“I’m not sure I can do it Wy,” she said, curling her arms around Hazel’s head as if protecting her from the words, as if she could even understand what was happening.

Wynonna put her hands on her shoulder, like she had done on her very first day of school when she was still but a tiny thing, and Waverly looked up at her all the same, Wynonna still tall enough to make her feel safe,

“It’s going to go perfectly,” she smiled, “and if it doesn’t she has me to answer to,” she grinned, pulling their father’s gun from her boot, twirling it round her hand,

“Wynonna,” she hissed, “the baby,”

“Hey, I already knew how to shoot by her age,”

A silence fell between them like a dropped bucket of water, splashing up against their feet.

Some traditions you don’t want to pass on, and their father’s twisted obsession with all things violent was one of them. The idea of Hazel out in that frozen night, one hand on her shoulder, the gun rattling in a _child’s_ hand as she tried to aim at cans and beer bottles and anything their daddy could scramble together, it broke Waverly a little. She remembered watching Willa from the window, remember seeing the way her shoulders shook, just a little.

There was a honk from outside (the same outside from those days, the very same window) and Waverly felt her heart jump outside of her skin. She clutched tighter onto Hazel, the little girl obliviously playing with her hair. Because here was something new, but what if it was here to break the old, to crumble everything she knew, the small circle which was safe, this small room with her sister and her daughter. She’d stayed in this safe circle for so long, what if it perished when she crossed the line?

“Here give her to me,” Wynonna said softly, coaxing Waverly to reluctantly hand her over, her small hand still clutched around her finger, “it’ll be okay,” she smiled, “we’re just going to do some meth, watch some horror films it’ll be classic aunty bonding times,”

Waverly narrowed her eyes,

“Kidding,”

And then she was outside standing on her front porch, trying her best to smile, worrying about the hemline of her dress, worrying that she hadn’t brushed her teeth enough times, she could already feel her hair out of place. And Nicole was too shiny to be among the rubble of her family home, among the rubble of her former life, but Wynonna put a hand on her shoulder. She was grounded, the sky was only a sky. She placed a kiss on her baby girl’s cheek and went forward into the as yet unknown.

~

The restaurant was dark. Had they always been dark? She could just about make out Nicole, a lamp dimly lighting up her face, and she could only see what was on her fork when it was already half way to her mouth. Her hands shook a little, and she took too many sips of the wine in front of her for someone who hadn’t drunk in quite some time. But Nicole was warm and funny and strangely comforting, and when she smiled Waverly could only see her, like a tiny crack in the wall, light pouring through. And so, when Nicole offered her her hand in the in-between space between the restaurant and the jeep, Waverly didn’t say no. Her hand was warm, not quite home-warm, but as if it could get there, and all the stars seemed to shift just that little bit closer to earth.

Waverly didn’t want to leave, she wanted to sit in that jeep forever, their hands clutched together, their bodies tied together with string, staring at the stars and dreaming of something different, something new. But the flickering light in the living room was telling her Wynonna was still up, and she was sure if they lingered in the driveway much longer she would start peeping through the curtains, sticking her nose through the netting that had been a wedding gift for their mama, peeping through layers of history to see something new. And so she turned to Nicole, her heart racing, loud as if there wasn’t a single other sound in the miles of land that surrounded them, as if it were just them and her big, beating heart. And Nicole was looking at her like she was something heavenly, not new but older than time, a precious piece of lost treasure, an old goddess to be worshipped, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing with her own eyes.

They kissed and it wasn’t hard or scary or another thing to check off a mandatory tick-list, it was something bigger, it spoke of something beyond and Waverly felt as if she were already seeing new places, new things. And when Waverly watched her drive away, the lights bobbing before disappearing completely over the crest of the hill she felt a sadness wash over her, and the stars seemed just a little dimmer than they had a moment ago.

She could hear her Aunt Gus’ voice in her head.

_You’ve gone and done it now._

~

Nicole was kissing her in the darkness of her childhood bedroom that was no longer fit for a child. The homestead was an Earp short, which was something of a rarity, and the baby was sleeping, another rarity. But Waverly wasn’t really thinking about any of those things, she was more focused on the way Nicole’s hands were grasping at her hips, gentle but just tight enough to ground her, to connect them firmly together. She was more focused on the way her lips had slipped away from Waverly’s own and were making their way down her neck, Waverly’s hands in her hair, feeling Nicole push her, lightly but with purpose towards the great big bed that stood in the corner. She stopped what she was doing, looking right in Waverly’s eyes.

 _Is this okay?_ She said in the softest voice Waverly had ever heard.

Waverly nodded, more present in that moment than she had potentially ever been, just her and Nicole. It was worlds away from the fumbling in the back of Champ’s truck, or the quiet emptiness of her and Champ’s first time in his childhood bedroom that was still fit for a child, his parents TV blaring downstairs and his sigh, Waverly lying completely still beneath him, wondering if that was it, if that’s all there was to it. And if something as awe-inspiring and life-changing and beautiful as Hazel could come from that then what on earth and heaven above could this do? Waverly felt as if a glow were emanating from her, as if she was a fallen star breaking through the boundaries of her skin, setting the whole room alight.

The baby was crying.

And Nicole stopped immediately, her hands still resting on her shoulders, and it was miles away from _just a few more minutes_ when her phone was ringing, or Champ’s parents were coming up the stairs, their gentle plod sending fear striking through Waverly’s blood.

Waverly looked up at Nicole,

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and she felt that same genuine spike of fear flood her. She was foolish for believing she deserved someone as bright as Nicole, someone who set her alight. Why would she want someone with baggage? Someone who couldn’t even get through a first time without having to tend to her child, a dull pebble among a stony beach.

“Go,” Nicole said, smiling and Waverly walked down the hall clutching Hazel to her chest like a security blanket, feeling her tears drop against her skin.

_Sssh baby, it’s okay._

~

The moonlight spilled through a tiny crack in the curtains as she sat down on the rocking chair, Hazel clutched tightly against her chest, and the song spilled out of her before she could even realise she was singing. That same song she heard as a child, the only tangible thing she remembered about her mama.

 _Little donkey, Little donkey, On a dusty road,_  
Got to keep on plodding onwards with your precious load,  
Been a long time, Little donkey, Through the winter's night,  
Don't give up now, Little donkey, Bethlehem's in sight.

She wondered, not for the first time, if her own mama loved her even half as much as she loved Hazel. But then if she had she couldn’t have left, there’s just no way, her love was something fierce, it fell from her skin like starlight, bright in the corner of the dark room. She couldn’t ever imagine leaving Hazel behind, that little girl held her whole heart in one tiny little hand.

She looked up to see Nicole standing in the doorway, a soft smile lighting up her face, one of Waverly’s t-shirts thrown over her underwear (which was way too small and wasn’t really covering anything.)

“That was beautiful,” she smiled, and the corridor light backlit her making her look like a flame, a small ember amongst all that darkness.

Waverly had a lump in her throat.

“I’m sorry,”

“Stop saying that,” Nicole said, padding towards her, placing a hand lightly on her cheek before settling down on the arm of the chair,

“This isn’t what you wanted I know,” Waverly said, biting her lip in that same old familiar spot, a small groove, a home for her anxious tooth through many an incident, her head still turned, focusing on her baby girl looking back up at her, not wanting to see the look on Nicole’s face,

“I don’t care,” Nicole said softly, “some things are more important,” she moved to run her fingers across Hazel’s chubby cheeks, Hazel smiling and grabbing at her hand, her entire hand curling around one of Nicole’s fingers,

And Waverly didn’t say it quite there and then. It would be another time, further down the line sitting on her front porch, Nicole’s hand clutched in hers, but she felt it right there and then, looking up at Nicole looking down at her baby girl, a warm glow stretching around the three of them. She felt it in her heart.

Hazel started crying again, snapping Waverly from her moment.

 _Here, shushhhh,_ she said ever so softly, rocking her lightly in her arms but Hazel was as stubborn as she was beautiful and she was having none of it, her cheeks bright red from teething.

“Do you mind?” Nicole said, and Waverly handed her over, that same piece of her heart that lived outside her body, that same little piece that was so vulnerable, watching as Nicole bounced her around the room. Hazel eventually passed out on her shoulder, her little head lulling against Waverly’s _Kacey Musgraves ‘13 tour t-shirt_ , her half nakedness a reminded of the turn their evening had taken.

“I’m-“

“Don’t you dare say sorry again, Waves,” Nicole whispered, smiling down at her and offering her hand, “just come lie with me?”

Waverly sighed, nodding lightly as she successfully took the sleeping baby from Nicole’s shoulder and placed her in her crib. And when she woke up again in the night, Waverly thought nothing of bringing her into the bed with them.

~

She woke up to Hazel giggling as Nicole held her up against her knees, booping her nose and smiling down at her.

“Sorry did we wake you?”

“No it’s absolutely fine,”

She smiled and nuzzled into Nicole’s shoulder, watching her baby girl’s face light up. The glow was stretching from her again, encouraged by the early morning light, taking its tentative first steps. She tried to not let her stomach feel so tight, tried not to let her mind tell her that whenever something is bright, darkness is around the corner, instead she tried to focus on that perfect little laugh, on the feeling of Nicole’s body warmth, right next to her. There was something good happening. And she couldn’t run from it, not now.

~

When Wynonna stumbled through the door at ten a.m., still awake from the night before, into some kind of domestic breakfast bliss, she screwed her eyes up in disgust.

“Did I leave for ten years? Are you guys married now?”

But Waverly could see beneath, the way it warmed her heart to see her sister so happy, the way the glow stretched against her face, _not a house but a home, a home for a family._

Hazel grinned, pointing at Nicole.

 _“_ Hot!” She exclaimed in her small voice and Wynonna burst out laughing, “hot!”

“Whatever you say baby girl,” she smiled, pressing a kiss on the top of Hazel’s head, “see you’ve got an admirer already haughtshot,” Wynonna grinned and Nicole only rolled her eyes,

“Two admirers actually,” Waverly smiled softly, staring up at where Nicole was standing, some pancake batter splattered onto her cheek, and she could see a myriad of mornings stretching before her, a myriad of smiles and kisses and pancakes.

“Ugh,” Wynonna said, “I’m going to bed,”

~

Waverly was becoming something of a regular at the office. Those old memories of waiting outside her daddy’s office, her hand clutched in her sister’s, of being taken and sat inside a darkened room for what felt like days at a time, all alone (apart from Mr plumpkins) of bailing Wynonna out, time after time, we’re slowly being replaced with better memories. They were being replaced with Nicole’s face lighting up when she walked through the door, of everyone in the office fawning over Hazel, her being passed around like a parcel with a halo, as if one touch might bring you endless good fortune. They were being replaced with Hazel taking her first steps, unsteady on her feet across the floor to where Nicole sat, her lunchtime sandwich half abandoned on her desk. Nedley always had a treat for Hazel, and even after he retired he would show up every Saturday like clockwork, old reliable wrapped in his Hawaiian shirt, bouncing Hazel up and down on his lap like the grandfather she would never have. Or maybe like the grandfather she now did have.

The news of their reunion spread like wildfire, flickering over counters, spread between customer to customer, house to house until it was raging too wild to ever be put out.

_Waverly, the town’s old golden girl turned recluse, the new sheriff who was to bright to be in Purgatory, too different. And of course they live up there, with her sister. Completely crazy. I heard she’s on the run. Some trouble in Greece. I heard they kicked the sheriff out of her old post in Chicago. Nedley’s gone soft._

Waverly could hear their whispers on the back of her neck but she was learning to ignore them. Gus was getting on now, and Wynonna was as wild as ever; somebody had to be the rock. And Waverly stepped into the position, gracefully as ever, forever sacrificing everything to do what was expected. She would still feel the seize of her chest, the sky looking back at her with great unblinking eyes, and when she walked into a shop, sometimes heads would still turn before the fake smile. They were tolerated because of her status, Waverly knew that. Their name may have been cursed but it was imbedded in that god forsaken town, it was a name people took seriously.

She guessed little kids didn’t know about the power of a name.

Or at least the ones in _Purgatory county preschool_ didn’t. Hazel said so herself.

“You know I don’t have a daddy,” she said one day, as casually as if she were asking for a biscuit, or to change the TV channel, without the adult weight, just a small girl who was filled to the brim with questions that Waverly didn’t know how to answer. And as she aged it was only getting trickier, it turns out sleepless nights were much easier to deal with than this little form standing in front of her, blinking up at her, wanting her to guide her, wanting her to be a great, burning star, anchored to her in a raging sea.  And as Hazel got older she knew more things, ignorance really could be bliss.

“Tommy says it’s an abomistration,”

“Abomistration?” Waverly repeated, her throat already a little tighter.

Hazel furrowed her brow as if she were thinking real hard.

“Abomi _nation,”_

And Waverly stayed perfectly still as if, if she were to move, the sky might open up again, its teeth gnashing as they used to, cracking into a great big smile, teeth pointing straight at her. As if, if she didn’t move, it could be unsaid, packed back into a perfectly wrapped gift box. And sure enough as she moved forward, the car following the straight road all the way home, Hazel immediately began to talk about something else, placing the dried pasta necklace around her neck into her mouth, completely oblivious to the way her mama’s hands gripped onto the steering wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead.

Later she would feel like a coward.

She always told herself she wouldn’t avoid these things, that she would face them head on. Her whole life she’d been spoon fed lies, and she swore she wasn’t going to do the same, but there’s a difference between thinking and doing and she froze like a deer in headlights, like the deer in headlights she and Nicole had seen driving back from town one night, it’s bone-thin legs shaking against the road, fear punctuated in its eyes but still unmoving, like part of it wanted to be run over, part of it had seen them coming and had stayed there all the same.

She could feel her rock slipping, like an apostle that just wanted to slip, down down into the water below. It was so inviting, so blue and deep, she could get lost in all that water. She’d never have to see the surface again. It was a scary thought.

That night she cuddled closer into Nicole’s side and tried to ignore her urge to fall.

Their fence might not have been white picket but it might as well have been, she hadn’t even noticed it happen but she’d woken up to be boxed in by four sides of fence, and as she stared out at that big, open sky fading to night, she started to see the teeth again. What if she only ever saw that same, open sky? She struggled to catch her breath.

~

It was starting to rain and Waverly was still staring at that flyer in the window. Bright orange, flapping in the wind underneath the bright white sign that read _Purgatory Second-hand bookshop_ (because some signs got straight to the point),

_Writing competition._

_Winner gets a university scholarship!_

All her dreams came rushing back to her as if she regained her powers, flying in through her fingers and flooding through her veins. And she remembered pouring over ancient language books in the back of champ’s pick-up truck whilst he drank cans of beer with his friends and tried to get her to down shots of cheap liquor, she remembered looking through endless brochures of smiling faces lounging around on patches of grass as if it were their jobs, but she was all alone in the world bar Gus, and if she’d flown off Gus would have been all alone, with her Uncle, who was growing weaker by the day. _It wasn’t the time,_ she’d decided.

She didn’t know it would never be the time.

She was starting to feel like a bird rattling in her cage, those famous clipped wings Wynonna was always harking on about battering against the bars. She understood why her mama left. And it scared the shit out of her. Was she doomed to a cycle of repetitiveness? She knew what her mama leaving had done to her, knew it had ripped it heart clean in two, remembered sitting by the window night after night, hoping every flicker on the horizon might be her, running back with open arms and yet the air was so stifling in this goddamn small town she longed to pack up, to cross that godforsaken border like she had always dreamed of.

But she wasn’t alone now. Not even close.

She pulled her phone from her pocket like a zombie, slow, not quite aware of her own actions, snapping a picture before turning on her heel and falling back into the driver’s seat of her jeep, the empty booster seat like a slap in the face. She started up the engine and resisted crying.

~

When she got home Nicole was stood in the kitchen, chopping carrots at their newly installed kitchen island, her uniform on but her belt and hat discarded, her shirt two buttons undone, the radio was on and she was humming along softly.

“Hi honey,” she said as Waverly walked through the door.

Nicole was whole. Waverly was skeletal, awash with a guilt, a cage made of bones.

She walked over, kissing Nicole extra hard, making her take a few steps back, placing the knife down on the counter top.

Nicole was steady right now. She was steady and tall and warm and loving and bright and, despite the years that had passed, she still smelled of _something new._ Nicole could be enough. She could be a Sherriff’s wife. She could bake brownies for her daughter’s school friends and ignore the glances around town. She could take over Shorty’s when Gus retired. She could be the picture-perfect housewife with a beaming smile that everyone so desperately wanted her to be.

She could do that.

“Something’s wrong,” Nicole said softly, moving to turn off the stove.

“I’m not allowed to kiss my girlfriend now?” Waverly said trying to feign normal but her eyes were as wild as the wildest sea, her coat was still clinging to one shoulder the other half pushed halfway down her arm, her hair slightly damp from the rain and sticking out in ten different directions. She was being held up by a tiny rock below, wobbling, wobbling like a something people come to see from far and wide. _How does it manage it? Bet you a tenner it doesn’t last much longer._ They would all wait desperately for the rock to fall for the almighty splash it would create, and then they would move on as if nothing at all had ever happened. There was always another rock, another drama, another tragedy.

Nicole placed her hands on her shoulders. Nicole was steady and bright. She raised her eyebrows,

“Tell me,”

“It’s nothing,”

“You can tell me,” those same kind eyes, overflowing as if they were too filled with kindness they couldn’t help but pour out, as if she didn’t even have to try. And here she was giving Waverly everything she never deserved and Waverly was thinking of running. She felt her eyes tear up a little.

“I’m just feeling a little under the weather,”

“Here baby,” Nicole said, opening up her arms and letting Waverly bury her head in her chest, “go get settled upstairs, I’ll bring you some tea,” she said softly and Waverly felt as if she could barely look her in the eye, Nicole looking sceptically after her as she climbed the stairs. But she kept her eyes ahead, straight and firm.

~

It was Wynonna who knew first, as it would always be. Something about shared pictures in a cloud, a robotic cloud not a real one, the whole process so efficient and organised with no respect for the chaotic order of things, or respect for Waverly’s privacy, as it turned out. It had flashed up on Hazel’s tablet mid Peppa pig episode, the little girl curled up in Wynonna’s hungover lap, her hand brushing through her hair like she used to do with Waverly; her two little girls.

_Hand me that a second._

Later she’d cornered Waverly in their kitchen, Nicole working late shifts at the office (as was becoming a habit, her crawling in after the clock had stopped counting the time), Hazel asleep in her tiny box room that wasn’t going to hold her for too much longer. She was getting big. No longer a little baby, their house was bursting at the seams.

“You should do it, baby girl,”

And despite the softness of her tone it felt like an assault, like a violation of her own life. How could she speak so softly when she was careening back and forth above the waves? How could she talk so casually about throwing out everything she built?

“You need to start doing things for you,” Wynonna said and Waverly felt the waves crash against her until she was sobbing in her own kitchen, next to the cream, matching, kettle and toaster that Gus had got them as a ‘housewarming gift’ despite the fact that the house was older than her.

“You were always meant to shine brighter than this shithole town, baby girl, you know that, hell everyone knows that, why do you think they’re so damn jealous?”

“Hazel,” she said softly, more of a choke.

“You know she can go with you,”

There was a beat of silence. They both knew who she really meant.

“Nicole,” she sighed, “and you,”

She looked deep into Wynonna’s eyes like she had on many another night, they gathered their strength from each other, their hearts always beating in time. Waverly had lost her once or twice and she didn’t want to do it again, it hurt too damn much.

“You know you ain’t never shaking me,” Wynonna laughed, tears starting to form in her eyes, “and as for that redhead,” she sighed, “if Nicole really loves you, and believe me she does,” she laughed, “I ain’t blind, she would never stop you from doing this,” she took a breath, “and if she does, you gotta go anyway baby girl, you can’t let her clips your wings,” she grinned, “no matter how good the sex is.”

Waverly elbowed her in the ribs like she had done a million times before and let herself fall into her sister’s arms like she hadn’t let herself do in a while. Maybe rocks were underrated. Maybe she should let herself be pulled by the tide, be smoothed over, maybe if enough of them stood, one on top of the other, they too could make an apostle.

~

She mentioned it to Gus before she told Nicole, turning up at the bar in ‘the quieter hours’ (if there was any such thing when you were the only bar in a small town). Gus handed her a cloth and told her to wipe down the back, and nothing had really changed Waverly’s whole life, it might as well have been the same old cloth, the same old t-shirt calling her from the same old storeroom. The tinny radio rattled across the bar, and the regulars formed a small circle in the back corner, Waverly might even wager it was the same old pack of cards, the edges curled, beer stains covering half on the numbers.

“What’s going on with you, love?” Gus grunted. Always straight to the point, Gus didn’t do no messing around.

“Nothing’s going on, just thought I’d come see you,”

“Wy in trouble again?”

“No,” Waverly said, focusing on wiping down the counters.

“Spit it out, girl,” Gus said, firmly but not without love. The voice of her childhood, stern and firm but always with that undercurrent of love, as if she’d slap you round the head and complete it with a forehead kiss.

“I’ve been thinking about college again,”

“Oh god is that all,” she laughed, looking relieved, “I thought you’d got yourself into an even bigger mess than usual,”

Waverly’s brow furrowed and she only grinned, laughing at her.

“Of course you should go to college, love, it’s been such a long time coming, we’ll all be fine around here, if that’s what’s keeping you,”

Waverly stayed quiet.

“Or is it something else?”

“It’s Nicole,”

“She’s against it?” Gus raised her eyebrows,

“She didn’t say that exactly,”

“What did she say?”

“Well I haven’t exactly told her,”

Gus laughed, shaking her head, “Oh Waves you always did think too much about others, sometimes you gotta do what you want, and you’re blind if you don’t think that that girl’s gonna be with you every step of the way, she’d go to the end of the earth and back for you and that not-baby of yours, any fool can see that,”

Waverly looked up at her,

“Come here, baby,” she said, and Waverly collapsed into her chest. Gus. Her rock. “you deserve this, baby girl, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise,”

And Aunt Gus was always right.

~

She felt like a storm the day she told Nicole.

Hazel was off with Wynonna, sleeping over at Gus’ and no doubt being spoilt rotten, Waverly knew all about the pull of that halo and that big, wide smile, pure sunshine.

She was going to wait till later, after the meal that was cooking in the oven, after the night had drawn to a close, but she couldn’t keep it inside, it fluttered against her cage.

“I’m applying for colleges,” she said, the minute Nicole stepped through the door, the boots still on her feet, her coat halfway off her shoulders, her hair all messed up from the north wind that was starting to blow outside. And it wasn’t the slow gentle ease-into-it way she had planned, Nicole looked like she’d pounced on her, taken aback, her face taking a minute to crack into a wide-open smile, and god if Waverly didn’t want to spend her whole life watching her smile like that, making her smile like that. For the first time, she got a sense that it might all be okay.

“That’s great baby,” she said, moving to throw her arms around Waverly, spinning her around in their tiny porch so that her legs hit against their old couches.

“I know it’s not going to be easy, and I don’t have to, I can come back every weekend, and my inheritance money can probably stretch to a small apartment in the city,” she was babbling and Nicole was looking at her like she was liquid gold,

“I’ll come with you,” she said, without a moment for pause and Waverly stared at her,

“You can’t do that,”

“Why not?”

“You’re the sheriff,”

“I can get a policing job in the city,”

It was overwhelming to say the least. It was as if, in that one offer, her ties to purgatory had been severed. _She was moving away._ She was moving away from the town that brought her so much heartache, from the dry open lands where she wished for miracles, from the plastic she’d become in high school, learning when to smile, how to move, how to get gifted a second chance for something that had never been her fault, she was moving away from that ever-smothering cloud of darkness. But she was also moving away from the house where her mama had held her and sang to her, the house where Wynonna and then Gus had held her and sang to her, the house where she’d sang to Hazel. She was moving away from her rock who smiled across the bar, steady, never moving, away from her storm of a sister, who was also her shelter. She’d dreamed of it for years, but never expected it to happen. Her uncle Curtis was born and died on Purgatory soil, buried among his tomatoes, most folks did.

She looked back at Nicole, her expression fallen,

“If you want me, that is,” she stared at her feet. And she was so _bright_ she couldn’t believe she could ever think that when she was glowing like a goddamn shooting star in her own living room. Nicole had shone for this town same as Waverly, and now the pair of them were taking their light back for themselves.

“Of course I do, Nic,” she teared up a little, moving to kiss her, Nicole taking a few steps back into the door, her tears running down both of their cheeks.

“You really want to give up your position? You believe in me that much?”

Nicole pressed her forehead against Waverly’s, whispering softly,

“This town’s always been too small for you, Waves, I’m betting on _us,”_

“ _We’re really doing it,”_ she said softly, barely audible before the smoke alarm went off, a thin layer of smoke filling the kitchen, snapping them away from their moment.

“You were cooking something, baby?” Nicole smiled,

“Shit!”

Laughter filled the air, mingling with the smoke and creating something new. And for dinner they ate burnt lasagne.

~

Waverly felt like they were a small family. Three’s a magic number and that lay in the air as Hazel sat strapped into her car seat in the back of the same jeep she’d driven since she was seventeen years old. It was finally going somewhere new. She and Nicole were a team. She knew that from the way Hazel ran to Nicole after preschool and the way she reached out for her when she was tired, from the way Nicole was her daughter’s safety, her protection against the cold, her big, tall tree that would never come crumbling down. But sitting all together, moving somewhere new, she knew she’d made a little family, carved out a corner for herself in a world that big and scary and relentless. And it felt damn good.

Wynonna was trying not to cry. Even storms have feelings. And as she hung through Waverly’s window, leaning against the edge of the corner Waverly could see the tears beginning to form. Her and Wynonna were forever bound and she had no doubt she would see her before long, her feet propped up on her new kitchen table, boots scuffed from whatever work she did hauled up in that police station. Who knows maybe she’d even bring that guy she pretended she wasn’t in love with, the one with the kind eyes. Waverly knew their bond was strong that it would stretch and stretch and stretch, but it didn’t make it any easier as Wynonna leant down placing a kiss on her forehead.

She was leaving her family behind, her lifelines, her rocks and heading towards something new, something that she’d been itching for forever, that she’d seen in Nicole’s eyes that very first time, shining bright like a missing penny in the dimly lit police station.

And Gus winked at her from the front porch, her stance firm, her arms crossed.

And she knew she could do it.

~

Her house no longer had a picket fence, it was overrun with old flowers and faced onto a main street, it was cluttered and small and the sink was at an awkward angle. But Waverly loved it. It was the start of a great adventure, every surface felt fresh and new and it wasn’t rattling with ghosts of futures past. She got to pick up big books from the library and asks questions in rooms full of people who would never dismiss her, she got write long essays against that back window, the sun peaking through the clouds, a spark in her growing stronger day by day. She got to pick Hazel up from school and hear her teachers gush, she got to read her bedtime stories and she got to answer every one of her questions however big or small. She got to see Wynonna or Gus at weekends, eggs sunny side up and a pot of steaming coffee abandoned for conversations, for stories relayed of the old regulars in the bar, of _Dolls’_ new habit (seemed like Waverly’s hunch had been correct), and Waverly could appreciate it so much more at a distance. She made friends in her classes, a shy man with a mop of curly black hair who became an instant life-long friend, who would bring her takeout on a Thursday night and who would endlessly recommend documentaries that Waverly always loved. Waverly helped him with a crush he had on one of his classmates, and soon enough both of them would call around with pastries from the bakery and always a gingerbread man for Hazel. And when Nicole came home from work they would sit all night and talk, their little camp fire going in the back garden amongst the wild flowers which had slowly started to be combed back, under a blanket of stars and Waverly could curl into her side and close her eyes in happiness, she was living the life she’d always dreamed of.

Sometimes she waited for the roof to fall in, for everything to crumble, for her to drive home with her head hung low, but Gus’ voice was as sure and steady over the phone as it had ever been. _You spend long enough expecting the roof to fall in you start to will it to happen. You start to self-destruct. A watched pot never boils, you can’t spend your whole life with only one eye on the present and one eyes on what might or might not happen in the future._ And Gus was a wise rock who was always right. Wynonna was sharper, more to the point and there was a dubious amount of noise in the background of the call but it hit her all the same; _you got this, baby girl, you deserve this._

And she did deserve it. Slowly she was starting to believe that, she was starting to cherish her life instead of fear it. Cherish the way Nicole’s eyes crinkled when she smiled, cherish her baby girl reading aloud, getting smarter every day, a small force to be reckoned with. She cherished the blossom in the spring and the frost in the winter, she cherished the knowledge shared and even the late nights, Nicole passed out on the couch next to her as she furiously tapped away. And she allowed herself to look through catalogues, staring hard at little white cradles in a way she’d never been able to the first time around, when the darkness clutched her, now it was relegated to the occasional stormy day and she could see the sun. It didn’t scare her quite so much.

She had her little unit. And sometimes you’ve got to bet on your own team. Her rock against the rising tide, her whirlwind storm, her shining light and her ray of sunshine and she clutched them all tight against her. Her family.

The sky would always swirl and the sea would always rise, but she would dust herself off, and she would try again.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly not really sure how successful this was, but it really restarted my passion for writing.  
> Let me know what you thought!  
> My tumblr is waverlysangels and my twitter is waverlysangel
> 
> hope you had/have a great day!


End file.
